The Consolidated Mathews Stability Graph for Open Stope Design

Abstract The stability graph method of stope design is one of the most widely used methods of stability assessments of stopes in underground polymetallic mines. The primary objective of this work is to introduce a new stability chart, which includes all relevant case histories, and to exclude parameters with uncertainties in the determination of stability number. The modified stability number was used to achieve this goal, and the Extended Mathews database was recalculated and compared with the new stability graph. In this study, a new refined Consolidated stability graph was developed by excluding the entry mining methods data from the Extended graph data, and only the non-entry methods data was used. The applicability of the proposed Consolidated stability chart was demonstrated by an open stope example. The stability for each stope surface was evaluated by a probabilistic approach employing a logistic regression model and the developed Consolidated stability chart. Comparing the stability analysis results with that of other published works of the same example shows that the determined Consolidated chart, in which the entry-method data is excluded, produces a more conservative and safer design. In conclusion, the size and quality of the dataset dictate the reliability of this approach.